Mozart's Sister (47 page)

Things moved quickly-at my request. I was fearful I would
change my mind, so once the marriage contract was signed (Papa
scraped together five hundred florins for me to bring into the
marriage, and Johann promised a thousand florins, with an additional five hundred as Morgengabe-my monetary reward for being a
virgin), Papa made an application with the archbishop to speed
everything up. Which he did. We planned to be married on August
23, 1784.

As good a day as any.

I knew I shouldn't feel that way. But as I stood before the mirror
in the hall and tied my bonnet I could feel nothing else. Tying that
bonnet was likely my last act as a single woman in our home on
Hannibalplatz, for I was just moments away from getting into the
carriage that would take me to St. Gilgen and the rest of my life.
Previously, Franz had said he didn't take change well and had intimated that I did.

I did not.

I'd lived in Salzburg thirty-three years. I knew how the looming
fortress on the hill looked in all four seasons and with every kind of
sunlight or cloud cover God could provide. I had watched the ice
come and go on the Salzach River and loved the way it crunched
and broke to be swept away in the current; I enjoyed the curved
plantings of red begonias in the Mirabel Gardens and loved walking
around the fountains with my friends. I knew the shortcuts to
church, and which coffeehouse served the best cake. There was not
a day that went by where I did not stop and chat with someone on
the street as if we'd known each other our entire lives.

Which we had.

I was rejuvenated by the smell of fresh grass and greenery when
I'd seek solace in the mountains nearby. And while coming back
from an errand, I loved hearing music emanating from both our
home and from Holy Trinity in the square across the way.

Holy Trinity. Where Franz worked.

I shook my head, willing the thought away. I had to stop thinking of him.

It would be a daily battle.

Papa appeared in the opened front door. "The coach is waiting,
Nannerl."

I nodded once and moved to join him. But at the last moment,
I hesitated in the arched doorway leading to this home I loved. I
would return, but things would never be the same.

Unable to speak, I whispered good-bye to the walls, then hurried away.

A few minutes later Papa held my hands through the window of
the carriage. "I will see you tomorrow at the wedding. So many of
your friends are coming to join you, Nannerl. You should be very
pleased."

"Any word from Wolfie?" I asked.

"He's busy, dear one. You know that."

I knew that. Although my brother's letter writing had deteriorated to a deplorable infrequency, last we'd heard he was working on
a string quartet. He had more important things to do than attend a
wedding. We'd grown apart through distance, busyness, his marriage, and our different attitudes about life in general. It grieved me.

Papa spoke to the driver. "Carry on." To me he said, "Safe journey."

I withdrew into the compartment. Although I knew I should
probably remain at the window in order to take in every detail of
Salzburg as I left it for the final time as Nannerl Mozart, I could not.

But suddenly ... "Whoa!"

The carriage stopped abruptly.

Franz appeared at my window. "Franz? What are you doing?"

He pushed an envelope through the window and into my hands.
Then he took a step back and waved the driver on. I leaned out the
window, needing to see him. He stood by the side of the square,
staring after me. Then he kissed his fingers and raised them in a
wave.

I returned the gesture and held my hand erect-as did he-until
the carriage pulled us away from each other's sight.

No, no, no, no, no. Go back! I can't do this!

"Are you all right, Fraulein?" asked the woman in the seat across
from me.

No, I wasn't. But I managed a nod and sat back in my seat,
seeking the shadows.

"Someone obviously cares for you very much," she said, nodding at the letter.

"Yes." It was all I could say.

"Well?" she said. "Aren't you going to read it?"

A part of me wanted to rip open the seal and absorb every word.
But the other part sensed what it might say and knew the words
would break my heart even further.

"Go on," the woman said. "I have knitting to do. I won't bother
you" She pulled out her needles and yarn and averted her eyes.

I broke the seal and unfolded the single page. Franz's lovely cursive graced the paper like artwork on a canvas. His words were just
as eloquent: To my beloved Nannerl. I will always love you. Someday, in
God's providence, we will be together once again. Your loving Franz.

I held the letter to my breast. And began to cry.

What had I done?

When I arrived at the home in St. Gilgen that had once been
my mother's, Johann helped me out of the carriage and kissed my
cheek. "Welcome," he said. "Welcome to your new home."

It was not my home. It was not my family.

But like it or not, it was now my life.

I willed myself to smile. "Thank you."

He pulled my hand into the crook of his elbow and patted it.
"My city offices are on the main floor, but come upstairs to the
living quarters and meet my children. Our children."

My body moved up the stairs, but my mind remained on the
street, stunned by the finality of this truth. Tomorrow was my wedding day and I would become a mother-the mother-of five children.

Then suddenly they were before me in the entrance hall, lined
in a row, wiggling and squirming. Their eyes flitted over me, taking
me in. Who was this new mama of theirs?

"Hello, children," I said. The oldest, named Maria Anna like me,
was a girl of thirteen. Beside her stood four boys aged ten to two.
The oldest boy was Wolfgang, Joseph was seven, then Johann Baptist
the younger, aged four, and finally little Karl.

They each bowed or curtsied and murmured a greeting,
although my husband-to-be's namesake looked me right in the eye
and said, "My mother's dead."

I glanced at Johann, expecting him to admonish the child. He
did not.

I noticed Maria's face was dirty, there was a distinctly unclean
odor in the air, and the boys' clothes were rumpled and torn. Had
they been left to run wild since their mother-mothers-had died?
There was a certain caged-animal aura to the room....

Joseph raised a hand. "Is the music thing that was delivered
yours?"

My heart leaped. As a wedding present Papa had promised me
one of those new pianofortes. "It came?"

"Yesterday," Johann said. "Though we really don't have room
for-"

"Where is it?" I asked. I immediately realized I'd been rude and
offered Johann a smile. "Forgive my excitement. May I see it?"

Maria said, "I'll show you."

She led me into a front parlor, which was bathed in sunshine.
The rugs on the floor were worn, the arm on one of the chairs was
missing, and the pictures on the wall were cockeyed, but none of
that mattered. There, in the corner, sat a new pianoforte. Not an
old-fashioned clavichord or harpsichord like those I'd learned upon
but a new invention with foot pedals to control the volume, and
keys that offered a more pronounced and powerful sound.

"It plays," Joseph said.

I put my hand on the back of his head. "I'm so glad."

"Why don't you play something for us," Johann said.

I sat on the bench and took a moment to lightly stroke the
lovely ivory keys. Then, as if they had a mind of their own, my
fingers found their place and began. I played one of my brother's
pieces, one he'd written long ago for my name day. He'd said the
lively movement of the eighth notes was his way of portraying the
light in my eyes when I was happy.

I closed my eyes to capture the memory of his words and let the
music take over. The sound I received was deeper, more mellow
than that of other instruments. And the way the pedals let me sustain
a note beyond the pressing of finger to key ...

Too soon the song came to an end. The notes tried to linger in
the air but were doomed to fall away. I opened my eyes and saw a
dozen eyes looking back at me.

"That was pretty," Maria said.

Joseph put a hand on top of the instrument. "I want to learn to
play like that. You'll teach me, won't you?"

I took my first deep breath of St. Gilgen air. "Yes, children. I
will teach you all."

I was allowed private time to unpack. Although I would sleep
in another room that night-the night before our wedding Johann
had instructed me to unpack the bulk of my possessions in his bedchamber. Which would become our bedchamber.

It was a lovely room, larger than even Papa's room back in Salz burg. But as I ran my hand over the carving on the wardrobe that
was to hold my dresses, as I picked up the porcelain figurine of a
robin, as I admired the lace edging on a doily, I couldn't help but
remember that these things had been used by two other women
before me. Johann had been married to Maria for ten years. She had
borne him nine children, dying after the birth of the ninth. The
four oldest surviving children were her doing. Fifteen months after
her death he had married his beloved Jeanette, who had borne him
one son, Karl, before dying at the birth of another.

She'd died just sixteen months ago. Now it was my turn.

I shivered. I was doing a lot of shivering lately, as if my body was
trying to adapt to this odd combination of expectation and reality. I
opened the satchel that had been placed on the bed. I removed a
carefully wrapped packet. Three seashells fell onto the mattress.

I picked them up one at a time and placed them in the palm of
my hand as if they were precious gems. For they were precious to
me. These were the shells I'd plucked from the ocean at Calais on
our Grand Tour. I closed my eyes and remembered how the tide
had teased my toes, forcing me to run away, only to be drawn back
to its edge. In many ways the shells meant more to me than all the
golden snuff boxes in the world, for they were symbolic of both my
crossing over from one country to the next, and my crossing from
childhood to young womanhood.

I'd been on the edge of a new experience then. And now I was
at the edge of another.

I carefully placed the shells on the bedside table where I could
see them every morning when I woke.

Beside my husband.

Oh my.

The wedding ceremony was a blur. The reception afterward was
populated by many people I did not know I feared I would never
remember their names.

Only the smiling face of Papa got me through. He was the one
constant, the one glue that linked my past, my present, and my future. To see him happy in the day made me seek happiness too.

And I was happy. I was determined to be happy. For what good
would come from regrets or could-have-beens? This path I'd chosen, I'd chosen. Although the circumstances of life had been instrumental in bringing me to this moment, I could have remained in
my father's house forever. I would have gotten by-even after his
death. Yet to choose that life of utter loneliness when a life in a
teeming home full of husband and children was available to me ...